


the heart of this flower imagines

by firebrands



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21955450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firebrands/pseuds/firebrands
Summary: Steve isn’t really paying attention to anything when something red catches his eye: a petal. He looks down at his lap and picks it up.He’s contemplating the petal, glancing around to see where it could’ve come from, when an unfamiliar feeling wells up inside him and he coughs. He hasn’t coughed in years, not after the serum.He looks down. On his lap: more petals.*For Cap-Ironman Holiday Exchange, with the prompts:It wasn't Tony's fault, okay?Being soulmates shouldn't be this hard.Steve can absolutely fix this.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 40
Kudos: 555
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	the heart of this flower imagines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MK_Yujji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Yujji/gifts).



> title from somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings
> 
> i hope you like this!!

Steve isn’t really paying attention to anything when something red catches his eye: a petal. He looks down at his lap and picks it up.

He’s contemplating the petal, glancing around to see where it could’ve come from, when an unfamiliar feeling wells up inside him and he _coughs_. He hasn’t coughed in years, not after the serum.

He looks down. On his lap: more petals.

* * *

Sitting in front of Maria Hill, staring resolutely at the wall across him, Steve hates that in spite of everything he still hasn’t learned when to keep his damn mouth shut.

“Steve?” Maria says, and Steve’s attention snaps back to her.

“So you’re telling me,” he says, fighting back the urge to massage his temples, “that we need to pretend to be soulmates.”

Maria sighs, then nods. “After yesterday, you— _we_ —need the good press.”

On Maria’s laptop, footage of the presscon they’d just come from plays and replays. Steve doesn’t need the audio on to remember how it went.

_“Dr. Banner, are you working on anything to address the reported increase in Hanahaki cases?”_

_“Oh, that’s really not my area of expertise, I—”_

_“Really? You’re asking The Avengers about solving people’s soulmate problems?”_

_“Well, Captain Rogers, it’s—”_

_“Isn’t there affordable surgery for that now?”_

_“Yes but—”_

_“So why the need for other options? I’m—”_

The audio to Steve’s mic was cut at that moment, but the damage had been done. Steve watches himself look at the mic, and Tony diverting attention to himself.

“Are you okay with this?” Tony asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken since he’d laid out his proposal. “I mean, it’s not like there’s much of a choice…” he trails off and looks a bit tentative; it’s a new look, and Steve blinks as he files the thought away for further scrutiny.

“No, there isn’t,” Steve says, sighing. “You and me, huh? Soulmates. Who would have thought.”

Tony flicks back a few slides from his presentation to a chart. “More positive feedback if it’s us compared to the others,” Tony says, repeating what he’d said earlier.

Steve wants to laugh, but it doesn’t feel very appropriate. “Are we going to have to kiss in public?”

“Yes,” Maria says, frowning. “At least a few times.”

“We can do it in private, too,” Tony teases, winking at Steve.

Steve curses himself as he feels his cheeks heat. He smooths down the lines in his pants, looking for something else to focus on. He tells himself that this is just another mission, and it doesn’t really mean anything. He’s survived worse, really.

* * *

Steve was twelve when he’d first seen a man cough out petals into a public bathroom sink. Steve watched in the mirror as he washed his hands; the man was doubled over, the petals streaked with blood.

He waited until he and his ma were home before he asked.

“Oh Stevie,” she says, frowning down at her dinner. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“But what was wrong with him?” Steve asks, worry already beginning to gnaw at his insides.

“That’s a disease. Hanahaki disease. People suffer from it when their soulmate rejects them.”

“But why—”

“It’s a bit complicated, Stevie. Most people aren’t even lucky enough to meet their soulmates, you know?”

Steve nodded. He knew that his ma and his pa weren’t soulmates; they couldn’t be. They never said it, but they never had to.

“And sometimes, when they do meet their soulmates, their person is already tied to someone else, or they just—they don’t love that other person.” His ma looked away for a moment, lost in thought.

“And then…” Steve prodded gently.

“And then they start coughing up petals, and then later, when it’s at a more advanced stage—”

“You can die from it?” Steve nearly shrieked, horrified at the idea.

“People used to,” his mother said as she reached over to hold Steve’s hand, trying to calm him. “But they’re developing a way to surgically address it.”

“What does it… do?” Steve asks, inexplicably worried.

Sarah sighs. “I figure you’ll learn about this eventually, anyway. But when they remove the source, well…” she pauses for a moment, chewing her lip. “The feelings, the love—it goes away too.”

“What if—” Steve stopped himself, his mind still reeling from the idea that this happened to people.

“Don’t worry about it yet, Stevie,” his ma said, her hand tightening around Steve’s. “I’m sure _if_ you find your soulmate, they’d fall in love with you at first sight.”

* * *

Steve stays with Maria to draft a statement. He tells Maria about the first time he’d heard of the disease, how he’d seen soldiers come back after furlough and they were fine, at first, and then the letters stopped coming and the next thing he knew, a man in camp was doubled over a hole he’d dug in the soil, coughing up whole chunks of flowers.

He’s always hated the idea that love could do you in like that; on top of all the other ways the world could hurt you, that this could happen, too. That sentiment doesn’t make it to the final statement.

The statement they release to media instead highlights how one of the things Steve had liked about waking up in 2012 was that people didn’t really have to worry about the disease as much. About how finding your soulmate was easier too, in a way, because the world was smaller. How surgery had changed the game, and made living life possible after rejection.

The statement doesn’t include how, when they’d found Steve in the ice and ran scans, they’d found a veritable bouquet in his lungs, and how when Steve finally saw Peggy, he’d felt nothing other than fond nostalgia.

* * *

They go on their first date a week later, after the news had died down. It was a tactical move; they took the hit for what it was and this was meant to rebuild Steve’s image in the most authentic way.

Steve had snorted at that last bit about authenticity. Mostly because if they knew, if anyone really knew how he felt about Tony, well. Game over.

For their first date as fake soulmates, it’s relatively tame. Tony takes him to a swanky French restaurant and they sit a table or so away from the windows, just close enough for anyone interested to take a photo. (And of course, everyone was interested in taking a photo.)

Tony orders for him and reaches across the table to brush his hand over Steve’s. Steve nearly flinches at the contact, and wills down the bile rising up his throat—why had he agreed to this?

Tony, to his credit, senses Steve’s discomfort. “Just need the money shot,” he murmurs, eyes downcast.

Guilt settles in the pit of Steve’s stomach. He turns his hand palm side up, crooks his fingers. It’s his own form of apology, and Tony lays his hand on top of Steve’s, a small smile on his lips.

The next day, there’s a grainy photo of them on page six. The headline reads: _Captain America and Iron Man: MORE THAN FRIENDS?_

* * *

Tony sends him calendar invites for all their activities. It’s a good reminder for Steve that this is all manufactured. It grounds him. (And he needs that. He does.)

At three in the afternoon, two days after their dinner date, Steve’s phone buzzes with an alert. _Calendar Event: 15 minutes - Ice cream in Central Park._

Steve sighs, shuts his book, and gets dressed. When he heads down, Tony is waiting for him in the living room.

“Showtime!” Tony says, wiggling his fingers.

As soon as they’re out of the elevator, Tony takes Steve’s hand in his.

Steve thinks, over and over as they weave through the crowds of people: _Showtime._ There’s a large group of students coming their way, and Steve turns to Tony, a fond smile on his lips. Tony’s looking across the street, and Steve taps his fingers against the back of Tony’s hand to get his attention.

Tony looks up at Steve, questioning, and there’s a small crease the appears over his brow when he sees the look Steve is giving him.

“People,” Steve murmurs, and Tony gets it immediately; he leans forward and rests his chin on Steve’s shoulder, his dopey smile mirroring Steve’s.

The teens that pass them absolutely coo at the sight, and Steve tracks the number of phones raised, taking a picture of their moment.

“Good thinking,” Tony whispers, once they’re farther away from anyone else.

Steve keeps the smile on his face. It’s a good thing he’s had practice at this, at pretending.

* * *

The dates continue, their touches slowly ramping up as they go along.

Now there are photos of Tony’s hand on the small of Steve’s back during a gala while the two of them were dancing. Steve holding a door open for Tony as they’re about to enter a show. Tony kneeling beside Steve, both of them half-out of their uniforms, as medics tend to the gash on Steve’s temple after a skirmish.

The public eats it up, for the most part; there are still some sentiments about Steve’s position on soulmates and people suffering from Hanahaki disease.

On TV, a pundit says: “Sure he and Stark are going out, but are they soulmates? These people are supposed to be the best of us, aren’t they? I just can’t get behind the idea of Captain America looking down his nose at people who have had the misfortune of being soulmates with someone who doesn’t love them back.”

There’s a hubbub of agreement from the panel, and Steve buries his face in his hands. He does get it, really. In some ways.

Tony pats Steve’s back and says, “It's time we went on a vacation.”

Steve swallows hard. “Okay.”

* * *

Some nights Steve sleeps with a pillow flush against his back, not really allowing himself to think about anything, about how it’s a poor imitation of comfort, about how pathetic it is, to want that kind of closeness. About how that closeness has a name, and how he thinks it, how it travels down his brain stem and settles heavily on his tongue. He won’t say it out loud, is too embarrassed to.

These kind of nights are by far the worst; worse than those filled with dreams that leave him aching and hard in the morning—no. These nights, where he thinks of Tony and wonders if Tony thinks about him too, still. If Tony loses sleep over him. Steve selfishly hopes he does, if only to share in the suffering he feels so deeply, after all these weeks. And has it really only been weeks? Steve sighs into his pillow, lies flat on his belly, and briefly considers screaming into it. On his side, he feels the pillow digging into the soft skin beneath his ribs. A hand could fit there, in that small dip of space; a hand did fit there, grabbed on and held him close, once, twice, thrice over the span of hours.

* * *

“I didn’t expect this to go on for this long,” Steve says, looking at the calendar filled with dates Maria and Tony had planned out.

Beside him, Tony bristles. “Am I not a good enough date, Steve?” he huffs, but these days, Steve can tell when Tony’s teasing.

Steve doesn’t look at him and bites back his answer: _you’re too good of a date, Tony._ Instead, he shrugs. “Aren’t people bored of us yet?”

“Bored!” Tony shakes his head incredulously. “Baby, the world would freeze over before they’d get bored of Captain America and Iron Man dating.”

Steve sighs. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Tony seems taken aback by this. “Okay, what’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” Steve suppresses another sigh. “It’s fine.”

“Do you want to see someone else?” Tony muses. “When did you find the time to meet anyone else? We have such a full social calendar.”

“It’s not that,” Steve says, frowning now. “It’s fine. Let’s drop it.”

“Steve Rogers. When have you ever known me capable of dropping something?”

Steve shrugs. “You dropped your coffee this morning,” he says, smiling a little at Tony.

Tony rolls his eyes, then does a double take; he peers closely at Steve, and then does indeed, drop it.

* * *

They go for a ride on Tony’s yacht on the harbor. Tony’s sprawled on the deck, a perfect picture of relaxation.

Steve hovers beside him tentatively.

“Oh for god’s sake Steve, take your shirt off,” Tony says. “We can give the paps a picture of me putting tanning oil on you.”

“Won’t work,” Steve answers, plunking down next to Tony. “Irish complexion.”

Tony laughs. “Well, take your shirt off anyway.”

Steve hesitates for a second, but can’t put his finger on why. So he strips off his shirt and lays down beside Tony.

There’s a boat full of paparazzi trailing after them, not even trying to hide.

“So you’ve never found your soulmate?” Tony asks, apropos of nothing.

Steve startles so badly he nearly sits up.

“What?”

“You’ve never—I dunno. I figured, you of all people would be blessed with that kind of luck.”

Steve is shifts around, uncomfortable.

Tony turns on his side and regards Steve from on top of his lowered shades. “Well. I’ve never found mine,” he says.

“Okay.”

Tony continues to look at Steve, waiting for an answer. After a few seconds, Tony rolls his eyes and lies back down.

The silence is tense.

“There was Peggy. But, well. You know how that ended. They performed surgery after they found me.”

“Jesus, Steve. I’m sorry. It was that bad, huh.”

“It’s fine. I was under for an awful lot of time, Tony. And she’d gotten married, too.”

“Point.”

“Have you never tried looking?” Steve ventures.

Beside him, Tony sighs. “I don’t really care to. I figure that I’ve already used up whatever luck’s alloted by the universe — cant find my soulmate now, this late in the game. What’s the point, anyway, right?”

Steve longs to reach out and touch Tony, wants to say, there is no point, it doesn’t matter if you’re soulmates with someone or not, love still exists outside those parameters, doesn’t it? That’s what gets people sick, anyway. People falling in love with the wrong people.

After a moment, Steve realizes: he can do that. He can touch Tony, without arousing any suspicion. They’re playing their parts, and Steve can do that. He’ll keep taking what he can get. So he reaches over and squeezes Tony’s hand.

“Doesn’t matter. We’re soulmates,” he says, trying to sound like he’s joking, like he’s in on the joke, that he’s the one making the joke in the first place.

Tony sits up and leans over Steve.

“That’s right,” Tony grins. “Pucker up.”

Steve barely has time to process what Tony is saying before Tony presses their lips together, quick and chaste.

Tony pulls back and Steve chases after him, pulls him back in, kisses him harder.

Inside him, something takes root and blooms.

Above them, a helicopter hovers.

Their little vacation on the harbor makes primetime news.

* * *

Steve isn’t thinking until he sees the petals, and then he can’t stop thinking.

First, and this is half-hysteria: What kind of flower is this from?

Second, and this is full panic: Who the hell is my soulmate?

The answer to the second question comes in the days between calendar invites.

It comes out of nowhere, but Steve wants so badly to kiss Tony again, and he remembers Tony saying that soulmates didn’t matter to him, and he’d never go looking for his.

Steve stares at the petals that have pooled on his pillow during his sleep and he thinks, very eloquently: _Fuck._

* * *

They’re sitting in a cafe when Steve turns to Tony and asks, “How do you think—” he stops when Tony takes Steve’s hand in his. The cafe is half-full of people, and more are coming.

Steve bites his lip, then starts again. “What are the rules of this soulmate thing, you think?”

Tony shrugs. “Beats me. Frankly I’m glad you put your foot in your mouth about this before I did.”

Steve laughs weakly, and then inhales sharply when he sees a few petals float out of his mouth along with his breath. Thankfully, Tony had been looking at his phone.

“I mean, I can’t say I still won’t, but this whole soulmate thing is stupid, isn’t it?” Tony says, eyes still on his screen, giving Steve time to cough politely into a tissue.

“It is,” Steve answers, surprising himself at how fierce he sounds. Except, it is, really, and he should be mad, because it isn’t fair that he’s unlucky _twice_ and of all the people in the world—

“Okay,” Tony says, eyebrow quirked at Steve’s tone.

Steve shifts closer to Tony, trying to change the subject. Tony complies, and Steve nearly shudders at how good it feels to be pressed so closely against Tony, warmth from his shoulder to his hip, down to his knee.

They turn their heads a little towards each other, talking idly about the last Dodgers game, and Steve barely registers the onlookers anymore.

* * *

Steve spends his evenings alone in his room, his chest cracked open to a yawning expanse of want that makes him think of what could have been. Evenings spent in cafes, weekend mornings in the market, followed by an early lunch by the park. Driving down highways with the windows rolled down, not having to talk, easy comfort, really, that’s all he wants—to be able to start a story without having to explain anything, to be able to lean in for a kiss. Things he could’ve had, if only. If only.

It only takes a few weeks for Steve to finally find out what’s growing inside him; he stares at the blood red peony floating inside his toilet bowl, and he tells himself that he’ll fix this, somehow.

* * *

They have a date scheduled that night and Steve spends ten minutes in the bathroom trying to coax out as many petals as he can, feeling ridiculous all the while. He finally gives up and flushes down the red petals.

He’s standing by the Audi, hands in his pockets as he waits for Tony to arrive; he’s the one who’d planned everything, and Steve was happy to let him. Steve is looking through one of Tony’s toolboxes when he hears Tony’s steps behind him.

“Ready to go?” he asks, as he turns to look at Tony. His breath catches in his throat; Tony’s on his knee, holding up a small black box with a silver ring gleaming in the fluorescent light.

Steve stares for a few seconds, then swallows. There are too many thoughts bumping around his head and he doesn’t know which one to verbalize, his mind zeroing in on the ring, on the smile on Tony’s face.

“Would you do me the honor,” Tony says dramatically, as if putting on a show, as if it isn’t just the two of them and three robots—

“ _Get up_ ,” Steve spits out.

Tony’s shoulders sag. “You ruined my spiel.”

“What the _fuck_ are you doing.”

Tony takes a step back at the venom in Steve’s tone, and Steve startles when he realizes how upset he is.

Steve shifts, relaxes his fingers which had curled into fists.

“It’s part of the, you know,” Tony says, waving his hand as if trying to shoo away a fly. “That.”

“Give it here, then,” Steve says, trembling a little. Even in his idle daydreams he’d never imagined this moment, it seemed too far-fetched, too impossible.

Tony hands Steve the box wordlessly and Steve slips on the ring.

It fits perfectly.

It makes Steve want to both swoon and scream.

Steve stares at the ring, and then looks at Tony. The room is thick with tension, and Steve slides the ring back off his finger.

“I can’t do this,” he says.

It’s just Steve’s luck that this is also when he launches into a coughing fit, spattering the cement of Tony’s garage with bloody flowers. He thinks to himself, so much for fixing things.

* * *

Steve wakes up in the clinic in the tower.

Tony is sitting by the bed, the suit he was wearing earlier rumpled and shirt untucked. He’s eating a bag of chips, which nearly falls out of his hands when Steve groans.

“Steve.”

“Hello,” Steve says, his voice rough.

“So who is it?” Tony asks as he passes Steve a cup of water.

Steve takes a long drink, using this time to think of an answer. Because he can’t—he can’t tell Tony, of course he can’t, it’s _Tony_.

“I—I don’t know,” Steve says, which is an awful lie.

Tony frowns down at Steve. “You and I both know that it’s impossible for you not to know.”

Steve stares at Tony, then heaves a more petals onto on his lap.

“Oh my god, Steve,” Tony says, before turning around and looking for a basin.

Steve wipes his lips with the back of his hand. His tongue feels heavy, his mouth tastes metallic from the blood. “Yeah, wow,” he rasps, because he can’t think of anything useful to add to the conversation.

“Guess we’ll have to postpone our dates for a while,” Steve says finally, feeling very unattractive as he plucks an errant petal from his bottom lip.

Tony nods absently, then turns to Steve. “I’m sorry about the ring,” he says, a small frown on his lips. “I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, even as a joke.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, uncomfortable at how somber Tony looks. “How long was I out? Where’s this coming from?” he asks, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’m just saying. I’m sorry,” Tony says, his face suddenly passive, as if he’d shuttered his emotions away.

Steve sighs. “Okay. It’s okay.”

Tony drums his fingers on the safety rails on Steve’s hospital bed. “No lecture?”

“You want one?”

“I think I deserve it.”

Steve puts his hand on top of Tony’s to stop the tapping. “Okay.”

Tony looks down at their hands, and nods. “Okay,” he says.

They’re silent for a moment, broken only by Tony sneezing.

Steve’s staring at their joined hands, but he looks down on his lap when he sees a blue petal, bright against his gray sheets.

Tony seems to notice, too.

“Oh,” Tony says. He tries to move his hand from under Steve’s, but Steve only tightens his grip.

“Wait,” Steve says, looking at the petal, then up at Tony, then at the red flowers in front of him, then back at Tony. “Wait.”

“I—” Tony starts, trying again to pull his hand away.

“Tony,” Steve says, sitting up and using his free hand to move the basin away. “Tony,” Steve says again, as he’s trying to gather his thoughts into something coherent, something other than, _oh thank fucking god_.

“I think that must have come from somewhere, in here, that is not me,” Tony says in a rush, looking around the room.

Steve pulls Tony towards him and presses their lips together.

Tony jerks away, looking around the room again. “Was someone watching?” he asks, and Steve finally lets go of his hand, which Tony shoves into his suit pocket.

“No,” Steve says, and he can’t stop himself from laughing. “No one was watching.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” Tony asks, and Steve expects him to make a joke about his good looks or his charm, but it doesn’t come.

“Tony, listen,” Steve says, scooting down the bed so he’s closer to Tony.

Tony very nearly takes a step away. He clears his throat, coughs into his fist.

Steve reaches over and takes Tony’s hand, and pries his fist open to reveal three petals on Tony’s palm. “Do you know who yours is?” Steve asks, smiling a little.

“No,” Tony says quickly.

“You and I both know that it’s impossible for you not to know,” Steve repeats Tony’s words, grinning.

“I don’t know what you’re smiling about, and it’s scaring me.”

Steve laughs. “Come on, use your big genius brain to figure it out,” he says, lowering the railing on the bed. Tony’s quiet as Steve pulls him down to sit beside him.

“You can’t seriously have thought I didn’t love you,” he says, after a moment.

Steve startles, but recovers quickly. “Why not?”

“Jesus, Steve. I can’t even begin to answer that.”

Steve huffs. “So what made you think I didn’t love you?”

“Because you said it was Peggy! And then all of the sudden you don’t know who it is, and I’ve never heard of anyone having two soulmates, and obviously, obviously it wasn’t me because surely you knew how I felt, you saw how I acted around you,” Tony lets out a breath, and turns his head away from Steve’s. “I figured, you had to know.”

“But I didn’t know,” Steve murmurs, turning Tony’s jaw to face him again. “And I don’t know why I have a second soulmate, but I figure, it’s just our luck, right? Like what you said.”

Tony closes his eyes and sighs, and Steve takes the opportunity to press their foreheads together. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” Tony whispers.

“Me too,” Steve whispers back. He smiles as Tony leans forward for a kiss.

“Tonight I’m taking you out on a real date,” Tony says, before kissing Steve again.

Steve laughs against Tony’s mouth, and they keep kissing and kissing and kissing until one of the wires monitoring Steve’s heartrate comes loose and the team runs into the room, panicking.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](https://firebrands.tumblr.com/) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/firebrandss)!


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